Deborah Obalil

In reading the excellent posts by Susannah Greenwood (Questions of Musical Engagement), Mary Trudel (Oh yes – there's an app for that), and Ian David Moss (Arts participation and the bottom of the pyramid) it becomes very clear that technology is enabling, and to a degree forcing, arts organizations to use sampling as a marketing strategy.  Now product sampling is a marketing strategy that has been around for quite some time.  Marketers have long known that if you get a taste of something good,  you'll buy lots of it.  It also requires that whomever is producing the product (the artist or arts organization in our case) to go to the people it wants to connect with to provide the sample.  In the not-so-distant past, this was a resource intensive proposition for the arts, especially the performing arts.

Early in my career I was the marketing director for a contemporary concert dance presenter, and we did lots of sampling, we just didn't call it that.  We called them previews or lecture/demonstrations.  The dance companies we presented would be trotted all over town to libraries and schools, public plazas and community gatherings.  And we would have information at all of these events about the upcoming theatrical performances and how to get tickets.  Since most of the companies we presented were far from household names (even for dance afficionados), giving potential audiences a taste of what the would get for the ticket price was crucial to building audience.

If you’ve ever worked in marketing at an organization, or if you’ve ever done graphic design work there, you know the pains and pitfalls of “design by committee.”  And unfortunately, if you’re not running the organization, you will never have the final say in the design of a marketing piece, a logo, a website, etc.  What makes one person happy can be totally wrong for another.  After all, design is subjective.  All the while, if you’re in charge of the design or the process, you can’t take it personally.  But design by committee is something that is almost unavoidable, and having to navigate it within an arts organization can be doubly hard because your colleagues often DO have at the very least a creative personality and a decent eye for art and design.  An article I read recently though, provides some good tips and tools for avoiding the worst parts of design by committee.

1. Clarify the Objective

A successful design starts with a well-defined objective that everyone understands and supports. Without one, it’s nearly impossible to complete a design project on your own, let alone as part of a large group. Be sure you also define and agree upon the target market, business objectives and criteria for success. Once you begin the feedback process, having a clear set of goals will help keep feedback on track and make it easier to disregard suggestions that are not in line with the objective.

Chloe Veltman

The relationship between public relations professionals and (arts) journalists often feels uneven to me. PR people seem to know much more about -- and are acutely sensitive towards the needs of -- the journalism profession than journalists know are are about PR people, as many PR people have been reporters or editors in the past (journalists rarely come to the profession from a career in marketing). And I think there are a lot of journalists who look down their noses at the PR industry. If a journalist leaves the profession to pursue PR, his or her colleagues will often accuse them of "selling out."

This is ridiculous, as like it or not, journalists rely upon working with good PR people more than they care to admit.

A few weeks ago, the head of one of the PR firms in the Bay Area, David Landis, asked me to participate in a new feature on his company's website called "Meet the Media." I had to answer a few questions about my job and send in a photo. I did what was asked and the result can be seen here.

The exercise made me realize how little I know about David Landis, and most of the other PR people I work with regularly for that matter.

So I decided to ask David if he would return the favor and answer a set of very similar questions to the ones he had asked me so that I could find out about what he does and post the findings on my blog. David obliged.

So here's the first installment of "Meet the Marketer," my response to Landis Communications' "Meet the Media":

Chloe Veltman

Every day I read articles in the press about how important it is for anyone involved in the arts world (or indeed, any world) to use social media as a way of marketing one's "product". I know how useful tools like Twitter and Facebook are from what I'm told by others. And technologies that enable organizations to mail out information to select members of their mailing lists or entire lists at the touch of a button has revolutionized the way we spread the word about what we're doing, reach new and familiar audiences, generate enthusiasm and even build funds.

What I struggle with though, is finding the time and mental capacity to both keep track of others' social media outpourings and develop my own. I've been feeling a bit stressed about it lately because I keep getting emails from Twitter telling me that someone wants to "follow" me via the tool, but I just can't bring myself to add tweeting to an already overwhelming amount of daily activities from writing this blog and filing articles to newspapers and magazines to doing all the fundraising, producing and hosting of a weekly public radio show and teaching.

This blog originally appeared on BrianSolis.com. Click here to visit the original post.

For decades brands basked in the glory of control, control over consumers’ perceptions, impressions and ultimately decisions and ensuing experiences. Or better said, business leaders enjoyed a semblance of control. While businesses concentrated resources on distancing the connections between customers, influencers and representatives, a new democracy was materializing. This movement would inevitably render these faceless actions not only defunct, but also perilous.

Fueled by the socialization of media, content and connections served as the foundation for this new democracy and “we the people” ensured that our voices were heard. Social Media would forever change the balance of power within markets, placing the fate and stature of brands in the words and actions of consumers and the people and groups that influence their decisions. Brands didn’t just “lose” control of defining impressions, businesses lost the ability to govern shared experiences.

Suddenly people enjoyed the freedom to publish their thoughts and the capacity to earn prominence in these fledgling social ecosystems. No longer was it an era of brands saying what they wished us to think; it was now clear that people were in control of their impressions and more importantly, how, where and when they shared them.

It’s no longer about what we say, it’s what they say about us now that counts.